UPSC Articles
Spotlight 19 (Aug): Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GOVERNMENT E- MARKET PLACE (GEM) ON REFORMS IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2s-OA-xQ4A
GOVERNANCE
- GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Government e-Marketplace (GeM)
On the occasion of World Environment Day, a new product category of Green Room Air Conditioners was launched on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) under the Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) program.
Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and its significance:
- Launched in 2016 to bring transparency, speed and efficiency in the government buying process, the GeM is a one-stop National Public Procurement Portal to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organizations / PSUs.
- It is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-marketplace that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface that provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users to achieve the best value for their money.
- It has been developed by Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) with technical support of National e-governance Division (MEITy).
- Being an open platform, GeM offers no entry barriers to bonafide suppliers who wish to do business with the Government and also eliminates human interface in vendor registration, order placement and payment processing, to a great extent.
- It facilitates a Single window system for aggregating demands and ordering thus enhancing transparency and ease of buying.
- User friendly dash board for buying and monitoring supplies and payments and is useful for low value buying and also for bulk buying at competitive price using Reverse Auction/ e-bidding.
GeM SAHAY project and its significance:
- Presently out of the 20 lakh sellers on GeM, there are around 7 lakhs MSE sellers and repair suppliers onboard contributing over 56 % of the full order value on GeM, which is a testimony to GeM’s success in not solely onboarding but additionally participating with the MSEs to assist them take part in public procurement.
- In a bid to address the credit access challenges faced by MSMEs, the Government e Marketplace (GeM) implemented the SAHAY project in collaboration with the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), a non-profit tech thinks tank’s volunteer team which is a mobile application for proprietorships which will enable them to avail financing opportunities on the GeM.
- The GeM-SAHAY portal can be used to provide frictionless financing for MSMEs on the Government e marketplace, allowing them to obtain a loan at the point of order acceptance on the GeM platform.
- Using the portal, the loan payment will be instant, rather than the traditional principle of approving the loan, which usually does not end with the actual payment.
- The GeM SAHAY platform is ‘lender agnostic,’ allowing any lender that is duly regulated by the Reserve Bank of India to participate and provide capital and smart collection accounts to GeM sellers.
- Sellers who apply for the loan facility will have a seamless end-to-end digital experience via a mobile application.
Can you answer this question now?
Discuss the significance of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) under the Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) program.
